I have been playing my “wounded child” routine.  I don’t enjoy it.  Luckily, it happens less and less.

My mother was a beautiful, loving, caring, devoted woman.  She had her hands full.  Seven children, husband, mother, dogs, plus a pretty large extended family.  She was smart and resourceful but just wasn’t well prepared to cope with all the pressures.

Beyond having to juggle her resources, she had to deal with very tricky issues in her marriage as well as with her children.  I know she did the best she could in spite of how I may feel about my personal experience with her.  That, I am clear about and I honor.

With so many “constituents” to handle, there was an inevitable barrage of conflict.  Everyone with their own agendas and interests.  Just human nature.  She didn’t handle conflict well.  Didn’t really have the tools or the education to cope.

So my personal strategy to get her attention from a very early age was to play the “wounded child”.  Never really worked very well I have to say.  For the most part, she would ignore it and laugh it off.  I still carry it with me and comes out particularly in my interactions with women who are very close to me.  What folly.

There was a time when I used to believe that my life would be perfect were it not for those damn feelings.  Mr. Spock and Commander Data were close to ideal.  But I have now come to believe that feelings are critical part of the makeup of our humanity, not only as an aesthetic choice but as a survival tool.  Feelings constitute a language that communicates our internal selves with the outer world.  They are literally a call to action either on our part or on those who surround us  (“run, tiger on the loose!!” or “come closer hot mama cause I’m feeling it too” or whatever).

But I have also come to believe that feelings, like many other things in our modern existence, are antiquated and not well adapted to our current surroundings.

Having been primarily in touch with my intellectuality all my life, I have been on a quest to explore my feelings for more than 5 years now.  I believe I have made a lot of progress, but clearly there’s plenty more to do and learn.

My primary dilemma when faced with intense feelings, anger, lust, fear, sadness, etc., is not so much identifying them but discerning whether or not they actually carry useful information, an appropriate call to action, or if they are merely a mirage, an echo from a neural system that adapted to a different reality than what I live today.  That’s where the wounded child becomes tricky to handle.

I am a sensitive guy.  With people I consider close to me, I can get easily hurt.  I put a lot of effort in my relationships.  I try to be the most present dad/husband/brother/friend/employee/boss I can be.  I cater to my constituents, which has come in enormously handy when I play a consulting role in business.  But the problem in close relationships is that I expect balance and reciprocity.  I want to be recognized, seen, heard.  I crave “the witness to my life”.

My mother used to tell me that she loved me, and I didn’t believe her.  Not exactly that I thought she didn’t love me.  She just didn’t love me with the recognition that I wanted.  So I would pour ever more of my being into her expecting something different than what she was already giving me, which of course would never come.  She gave me what she had, not what I wanted.  And I have the darnedest time appreciating that.

That same drama has happened many times in my life, and still happens, even within the last few days.  So here’s the dilemma:

• I’m on a mission to get in touch with my feelings;
• my feelings tell me I’m upset because I’m not being recognized the way I want to be recognized by somebody close (generally a woman);
• clearly, that’s information of some sort – a call to action;
• I can either do nothing and let it pass, say something expecting a change, or leave.

I have exercised all three copiously.  But in the end it is so hard to discern mirage from reality.  How can I in the heat of my internal battle clearly discern if I’m righteously justified or just being a baby?

Clearly no relationship is obligatory.  But no matter how close I got to it, I was never able to simply say goodbye to my mother.  I hung in there until the end, sometimes being a better son than others, sometimes being more critical and vocal, sometimes feeling her love and closeness more than others.  But in other circumstances and with other people I have made the choice to take distance, say goodbye.

In the end, there is no right answer.  Every decision is just that, a decision.  Painting the canvass of life in blue or red.  No magic.  Just personal choice, free will.

I cannot ignore my wounded child.  But neither can I give it free reign to act out its part as it pleases.  The responsible adult needs to intermediate, discern, decide.  That’s where “counting to 10” comes so handy.  So hard…

Today I recorded my second guided meditation.  Check it out at the Guided Meditations page.  More coming soon.